Holly

I try not to overwhelm myself with reading goals. If I set too many I can’t keep up with, I start getting reading anxiety and it becomes a chore to read at all.

Read at least 200 books

Every year I join the Goodreads Reading Challenge and set my goal at 200 books. I’m not going to change the number this year, but I hope to read 250. I came close in 2018. So fingers crossed.

Read more diverse books

I’d like to focus more on reading diverse romances. I’ve already started a list. I’m not going to set a number goal for this, but I am going to make it a priority.

Read more historical romance

I’ve been on a historical hiatus for the past year or so. With few exceptions, I avoid the sub-genre entirely. I’d like to get my historical mojo back. For now I’m going to try to read at least 1 historical per month.

Read more new-to-me authors

This year I want to read more new-to-me authors. My goal is at least 5 per month. I’m a little nervous about this goal, because I tend to be a reader of habit, always sticking with authors I know and love, and re-reading a lot.

Read more books from Kindle Unlimited and the Audible Romance Package

The Audible Romance Package is just $6.95/mo if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber or Audible Gold or Platinum member ($14.95 if not). As with KU, if you have the Audible Romance Package you can listen to an unlimited number of audiobooks from the ARP catalog for one set price, up to 6 at a time. They have thousands of romance audiobooks available. Audiobooks can be expensive, so this is a much more budget friendly way of listening. I definitely want to take better advantage of the program in 2019. The same with Kindle Unlimited. I only just subscribed to KU in March of 2018 and I definitely didn’t read enough KU books to justify the cost.

Read more from – and better organize – my TBR Pile

Let’s face it, I’m a book hoarder. Digital reading has made things worse, because I don’t see the stacks of book sitting around. I’d like to organize my digital TBR pile this year and start culling it down. I’d like to read at least 2 TBR books per month.

Review More

I’m going to try to review every book I read in 2019. I’m not going to include re-reads in that, unless I’m re-reading a book I haven’t ever reviewed. I read so much, I often struggle to get all my books reviewed. Hopefully I can change that this year.

Casee

Reading goals make me antsy. It’s just a fact. When I think I’m not meeting a goal, I tend to just quit altogether. It’s kind of like me and exercise. But that’s another story. This year, I have decided to set reasonable goals for myself.

Read at least 100 books

I always join the Goodreads Reading Challenge and this year is no different. I didn’t meet my goal last year I was surprised at how disappointed I was in myself. How hard is it to read 75 books? 2018 wasn’t my reading year. 2019? A new me!

Listen to more audiobooks

It was late last year that Holly introduced me to the wonderful world of audiobooks. Honestly, I had no idea what I was missing. I had listened to an audiobook here and there that I checked out from the library, but really. Audible has opened up a new world for me. A world that I adore.

Read more books from Kindle Unlimited

I subscribed to Kindle Unlimited for one reason. To get the Audible Romance Package for $6.95. Don’t judge. I have found a few good books through KU. This year, I am determined to give KU more of my time. Just because they’re books through KU doesn’t mean that they’re bad. Honestly, I have no idea how I got that idea in my head.

Read more New-to-Me Authors

I only read ten (10!) new-to-me authors in 2018. That is crazy talk. Just crazy. I don’t even think my new author “kick” started until July. I’m ashamed. I tend to get into a comfort zone. Then I don’t leave it. I’ve already read two new-to-me authors so far this year and I’m determined to make it more this year.

Read more

What I really want to do more this year is to just read. I just want to take the time to sit down and read. Yes, I want to listen to more audiobooks, but I miss just being able to sit down for two hours and read. That’s one of my goals this year.

Review every book

Yes, you read that correctly. This year my goal is to review every since book that I read and/or listen to. I did pretty good last year since I read so few books. I remember a time when reviewing didn’t overwhelm me or feel like a chore. I started to feel that feeling again late last year. The feeling of enjoyment in writing a review. I’m hoping that feeling will continue.

Rowena

I already wrote up my personal goals for the year on my personal blog so if you guys want to catch that, you can click on over and check it out for yourselves.

7 responses to “2019 Reading Goals”

You all are goddesses and you can totally achieve these goals. Go get ’em! 🙂

My goals are much more modest, because I feel like every year reading is getting harder and harder for me. I hesitate to set book number goals because I don’t think they’re very meaningful for me, but I do want to do a better job of setting aside reading time for myself. If I have a little free time I will often zone out on my phone–there’s no reason I couldn’t use those moments to do more reading. It’s either that or I don’t read at all, which is what happened a lot this year. I went entire months without reading, which doesn’t make me happy.

I also want to do a better job reviewing. ( Sorry y’all…) Partly this is a function of how much I’m reading, because if I’m not reading much I have nothing to review. Then, when I do manage to read a book I once again get busy and let the reviewing fall by the wayside. When I do read a book I’m planning to review, my goal is to get the review written in a timely manner rather than just telling myself I’ll get to it later. (Because when I do that, I inevitably forget details and end up having to reread chunks of the book, which is not a good use of my limited reading time.)

I’m definitely a mood reader, so I don’t usually do reading challenges. However, my one bookish goal for 2019 is the same as 2018 – to read more nonfiction, specifically, read at least one nonfiction book per month. I did not reach that goal last year, but this year, I’m trying to focus on it more. I’ve already read two nonfiction books this month, so hopefully I can keep this going.

Aside from that, there are the usual goals to read more from my TBR pile and stop downloading those freebies! I think I’m going to challenge myself to read one book that’s at least a year old for every two newer books that I read. We’ll see how that goes.

I usually read UF more than PNR aside from the really well known series like Psy/Changeling, but one lesser known PNR series that I’d recommend is Dianne Duvall’s Immortal Guardians series starting with Darkness Dawns. This series features vamps. I’ve read through book 5 or so, and I think there are 8 or 9 books out.

I usually prefer shifters to vamps so the following series are all shifters:
– Dani Harper’s Grim series starting with Storm Warrior. I’ve only read the first book but it was good.
– She also did a shifter series that I liked starting with Changeling Moon.
– a shifter series by an author named Jan DeLima that didn’t get much attention but I loved it. The first book was called Celtic Moon.
– Molly Harper’s Naked Werewolf series. These have cutesy covers, but they are actually more serious than her usual books.

I set a Goodreads goal of 200 (already 3 books behind, maybe 4 by now) which is the amount I read last year. My goal is to cut way back on buying books and once I clear out my library books I currently have checked out, read what I already own instead of checking out more from the library or requesting arcs.

Books Reviewed This Year

Reading Challenges

Rowena's 2019 A-Z Reading Challenge: 7 /26

27%

Rowena's 2019 GoodReads Challenge: 21 /150

14%

Rowena's 2019 TBR Challenge: 2 /12

17%

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